


One Step Behind

by JulyStorms



Series: Petruo Week: December 2014 [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Menstrual Cycle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 15:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2777837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulyStorms/pseuds/JulyStorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were playing down by the river when Auruo pointed it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Step Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Petruo Week Day 1: “Blood.”
> 
> I wanted to avoid the expected tongue-biting shenanigans and horrifying injury scenes, so I went with this.

They were playing down by the river when Auruo pointed it out.

It was a calm day: a slight breeze, cloudy and too-warm, which made the river a popular spot to go to. Children flooded out of the enclosed cities and through the Karanese gate into Maria to claim a spot.

Auruo, recently turned fourteen, knew everything there was to know about summer Sunday mornings, and about the river. If they left early, if they could peel themselves out of bed first: they could claim a good spot—the _best_ spot, even. But there would be competition, and as willing as Auruo was to scrap with other kids for the best spot, he had sort of learned to pick his battles.

Petra was always willing to stand up for what was right…but they’d never win against all the other neighborhood kids, many of whom were bigger than both of them combined.

So Auruo suggested they sleep in, and as usual, Petra listened to him. He knew Karanese better than she did, after all, and he wanted to enjoy his day off as much as anyone.

To her surprise, when they met in front of her house after breakfast, Auruo pulled her after him out of the gate and to a place he claimed would work nicely for them.

The water was shallow and filled with rocks, and it was too close to town; the breeze hardly reached them at all between the buildings. But it was competition-free, which meant that they wouldn’t be bothered by the other kids. They’d be able to enjoy their day together without one or both of them getting pushed into the river.

As Auruo peeled off his shoes and rolled up his trouser legs, she considered commenting on it, but when he wandered out into the water she found that she couldn’t do it. He knew it wasn’t perfect. _They_ weren’t perfect. He probably didn’t want the reminder that they had to take a spot by the river nobody else wanted.

“The water’s clear, here,” she pointed out, instead.

“Yeah,” was his response. “And it’s so shallow that I don’t gotta worry about you drowning.”

“Oh, so _that’s_ why you picked this spot?” Her hands found her narrow hips and planted themselves there. She had probably learned it from Auruo’s mother, and not her own. She couldn’t remember her own mother doing anything like that. “Well, I’ll have you know that I have gotten _better_ —“

“Better doesn’t mean _good_ ,” he said.

He was hiding a grin behind the expression on his face, and she could tell, so she jumped into the shallow water and kicked at him, splashing him right in the face.

His sputtered protest ended in a splash war between them.

Neither of them gave up before their clothes were soaked, and Auruo complained that his mom was going to kill him if he came home sopping wet looking like a drowned rat, so they made their way to the sparse grass in the shade behind one of the buildings, and flopped down together.

Petra spread her skirt out so that it would dry faster.

Auruo looked at the sky. It wasn’t as good as it was further out in the country, but at least they had some peace and quiet, here. Petra could appreciate it—could appreciate that Auruo wanted that, too. He was probably still tired from working all week.

“I brought some bread,” she told him, and reached for the little satchel she’d brought with her. Inside were two large rolls wrapped neatly in cloth—to keep them soft.

“You didn’t steal ‘em from your dad, didja?” he asked, one eye cracked open to look at her.

“He gave them to me, stupid,” she said. “Made fresh this morning.”

He just smirked. “I ain’t hungry, yet.”

She pushed them back into the satchel. “Later, then.”

Auruo fell asleep within minutes. Petra wasn’t surprised by it, or by the twinge in her stomach, which she ignored; she wasn’t going to eat without Auruo; she wanted to see his face when he bit into the soft bread. Her father had gotten his hands on some special spices and she’d begged him for three days to make her some special bread with it on Sunday just so she could share it with Auruo. They probably wouldn’t get to have anything like it for months or even years, depending on the prices of things.

The way Petra saw it, though...prices never really improved.

And Auruo—well, he’d appreciate the treat. He always did appreciate little things like that.

She watched him sleep; his mouth had fallen open a little, but he kept breathing through his nose, and his face was—well, it was smooth, and unworried, and she couldn’t help but smile at that. When she noticed a smudge of what looked like dirt from the mill he worked at by his hairline, she licked her thumb before reaching over to wipe it away.

He complained at her in his sleep, vaguely swatting at her with one hand and turning his head as if she were disturbing the best rest he’d ever gotten.

She pulled back and just watched him for a while longer. It was nice to see him looking relaxed. It was nice to spend time with him and not have to worry about other people, to only have to think about themselves.

When Auruo stirred after a while, she touched his hair, which had grown too long and needed to be cut.

“And here I was thinking about eating your food _and_ mine,” she teased as he sat up.

A frown immediately appeared on his face. “You wouldn’t.”

“I might,” she said. “You were asleep for hours, and my stomach started hurting and everything. I was afraid I might starve to death before you woke up.”

“You ain’t gonna starve to death,” he said, rolling his eyes.

She grinned and got onto her knees to crawl over to her bag. As she stretched out for it and pulled it to her, she said, over her shoulder, “Are you calling me fat, Auruo Bossard?”

She could hear the rustle of fabric as he turned to regard her; his expression was probably unimpressed. “Fat?” he asked. “You nag too much to be fat. You burn off all the energy you eat by naggin’. You ain’t fa—“

When he stopped, she stayed straight up on her knees and half-turned to him as she dug inside her satchel. “What?”

“You, uh… You…” He tripped over his own words and looked away, a hand tugging at the too-long curly hair at the back of his neck. “Hah… Uh—you got somethin’. On your skirt.”

She looked down, but didn’t see anything. “Where? What is it? It’s probably just dirt.”

“It ain’t dirt,” he said. “D’you think I’d point it out if it was just—now look, it’s… Uh. The back of your skirt.”

She twisted around, and there, on the back of her skirt, was a red stain.

“Oh,” she said.

There were a few moments of silence, where Petra tried to think and Auruo tried to speak, but neither of them really did much of anything.

“It’s normal,” he finally said. “If you didn’t know.”

“It’s that one thing,” she said, half to herself.

“Yeah. You ain’t dyin’ or anything.”

“I didn’t think I was dying. Except maybe of hunger.”

“So, uh…what’re you gonna do about it?”

She shrugged at him helplessly and felt her face turn red. “I, uh… I don’t know.” She remembered that it happened, that it was a sign of growing up or whatever, but she had no idea what to do about it. “I guess I should…ask my dad.”

“He’s working, though, right?” Auruo asked.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t, uh…walk into the bakery like, uh…like that.”

With blood on her backside, he meant.

She supposed it was a little gross.

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” she asked him. “How much bleeding should there be? That’s a lot of blood, you know. I hardly even noticed it.”

“How could you not know you were bleeding?”

She frowned at him. “I just didn’t, okay? Now I’ve gotta—what, go home and wait for Dad to get home?”

“Let’s go ask my mom.”

“Your mom doesn’t want to deal with another mess,” she said, face warming further. This was too awkward and she hated it.

“It’s not that bad,” he tried, but the look on his face told her that it looked like she’d been stabbed and left to die. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Should I try rinsing it out of my skirt?”

Auruo hesitated. “Uh,” he started. “Sure, why not? Maybe it’ll be less noticeable that way.”

And they had to walk back through town. She abandoned her satchel in favor of getting back into the water, and she tried to rinse the back of her skirt. When she gave up on getting it any cleaner, Auruo picked up her satchel and got to his feet.

“It looks better,” he said. It was an attempt to be encouraging, because it didn’t really look much better. “When we get back into town I’ll walk behind you so nobody can see. Let’s go to my house first. I bet my mom’ll know what to do.”

Petra really didn’t want to bother Mrs. Bossard, but Auruo had a point: she would know what to do. And she wouldn’t be in a public shop dealing with customers, either.

So she agreed with a nod and a quiet, “All right.”

* * *

 

The Bossard family had no daughters, but Mrs. Bossard was sure of one thing: she was going to make sure that all her sons knew how women worked. It was only fair, after all, to prepare them for life: real life, not some kind of imagined reality where women were perfect, delicate vessels waiting to be filled.

That had been about the extent of her own learning, and she’d be damned if her sons didn’t know the truth.

After all, the truth made things easier to understand.

So far she’d only spoken to Auruo about it, as he was the oldest son by a large number of years. He’d listened attentively but she’d also watched him speak to Petra for three days without hardly even looking at her. He’d recovered from that, though: from the idea of growing up and what that meant. It would be difficult and weird, but it happened to everyone, and it was always a little embarrassing.

Despite that, the last thing she expected to see on a hot Sunday afternoon was Petra shuffling into the house with Auruo so close behind her they might as well have been one being.

The boys were all playing in the bedroom—not quietly, but at least they were behaving—and she lifted one eyebrow at the both of them. “What’s going on?”

“Petra had to go and grow up today,” Auruo said.

* * *

 

Everything sorted itself out easily enough. Auruo found himself punted out of the kitchen almost immediately so that his mother could talk to Petra. He went to check on his brothers, to try to maintain some kind of order while his father was napping. He found them playing the kind of game only kids understood: it was something involving jacks, a blanket off of the bed, and a pair of shoes.

It was all very normal.

Unlike Petra growing up.

He sighed and resigned himself to his fate, which of course involved getting roped into the game. It would probably be a while before Petra finished talking with his mom, anyway.

And it was. More than two hours passed before Petra came to join them, but when she did, she was wearing a clean skirt and she looked cheerful again. She, too, was roped into the game, which now involved, on top of the other things, two more pairs of shoes and a small, crudely cut wooden horse.

Petra was nice to his brothers as always, and stayed for a while before she politely asked if she could steal Auruo. They sighed dramatically but said yes; they couldn’t tell her _no_ any easier than Auruo could, after all.

* * *

 

“Everything okay now?” Auruo asked when they made their way back to Petra’s house.

“Yeah,” she said. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“I guess that means you’re an adult now.”

“Guess so.” She shuffled her feet a bit before she looked up at him. “We should celebrate.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “How?”

“With the bread I brought for our lunch that we never got to eat,” she said, and pulled out a roll, handing it to him. “It’s special, okay?”

It looked like any other piece of bread he’d seen, but it was soft and looked good. His stomach made an annoyed sound at him for having ignored it most of the day. When she had her own roll in hand, he lifted his up.

“What are you doing?” she asked, but touched her roll to his.

“It’s a toast,” he said, frowning. “To you, duh. For growing up and getting even naggier…”

“I am _not_ naggier!”

“Yeah? Well, I guess my mom forgot to tell you that part. Once you get your first cycle you get like ten times naggier than you were before.”

“That’s not true,” she said.

“Sure it is.” He took a bite of his bread. It was weird—not like normal bread at all. Almost sweet. Kind of— _something_. He couldn’t put a name to the spice at all, though he was sure he’d smelled it before, in the better part of town.

“It’s nutmeg,” she supplied for him, and grinned. “And cinnamon.”

“Where’d you _get_ it?” he asked, and took his time eating the rest of the roll; he didn’t want to waste it by eating it too quickly. It was practically dessert, which he hardly ever got.

“My dad got a good deal last week, so I made my best cute face at him until he agreed to give me two rolls.”

“You didn’t hafta do that…”

“I wanted to. I mean, it wasn’t like I had to _nag_ him…”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine—geesh. You don’t get ten times naggier after your first cycle. That happens after your first growth spurt, which we know’s never gonna happen anyway.”

“What?” she asked. “It’s going to happen, all right!”

“No it won’t. You’re going to be a short scrawny nag forever.”

“No way! I’m going to grow taller than you, and then we’ll see what’s what!”

“Nah—you’d just end up _nagging_ me to death. Can you imagine that? Ten times your usual nagging power? You’d be unstoppable.”

“Auruo!”

“What?” He tried to retain a serious expression, but around Petra it was too hard to do. He could feel the corners of his mouth lifting up as he looked at her; she had part of her roll stuffed into one cheek, her face was red, and her expression was part-annoyed, part-exasperated. Of course she looked completely adorable.

“You’re hopeless,” she said.

“You’re not gonna get taller than me,” he said.

“Says who?”

“Me.” He chewed thoughtfully on the last bite of his roll before he grinned at her. “Besides, if you get taller than me, who’s gonna walk a step behind you to save you from weird looks ‘n shit, huh?”

“ _Save_ me?” she asked, and tossed her hair. “Well, I _guess_ you were sort of a hero today…”

“Yeah. Damn straight I was.”

“…Even though you _talk_ like a villain.”

“I do not!”

“Sure you do! Cursing all the time. _Really_!”

“Whatever.”

“Hey—“ she said. “I can’t help it if I get taller than you, you know.”

“You won’t, though. Like I said…scrawny short nag for life.”

She rolled her eyes. “What if I do, though? What then?”

He wasn’t sure why her tone seemed suddenly less silly. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Well,” he said, “maybe if you ask nicely…”

She turned her best innocent sweetheart expression on him—the one she usually reserved for her dad, because he always caved when he saw it. _Shit_. “Please, Auruo?” she asked.

“You don’t even know what you’re askin’ for,” he said. It was really just a way for him to buy time, to commit that cute face of hers to memory.

“I’m asking for you to always be there, of course,” she said. “Even if I do get taller than you. It could happen, you know. Your mom said it could.”

“She’s a traitor,” he said, but grinned. “Yeah, yeah… Fine. I’ll always walk a step behind you to save your scrawny ass from weird looks and shit.”

She lifted a hand. “You have to shake on it,” she said.

He took her hand. “All right.”

“Just one step behind.”

“Not two?” he joked.

She smiled. “No—just one. So I know you’re right there.”

“As if you couldn’t keep nagging if I were ten paces behind,” he joked, but shook her hand anyway, and said, “Deal.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s a deal.”


End file.
